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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22578541">The Master and the Flower-How Legends are Made</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireThatFox/pseuds/FireThatFox'>FireThatFox</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, longevity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:01:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,260</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22578541</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireThatFox/pseuds/FireThatFox</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been decades since she buried the man who had tormented her, enlightened her and had gifted her the gift of longevity unbeknownst to her at the time.  Her husband is dead now, her children are grown with children of their own.  What is left for her in a village that fears her eternal youth, her skill, her past? Nothing.  So she leaves, in search of that one place, from a dream, from that man, from long ago.</p><p>SEQUEL to The Flicker and the Crow<br/>Closed for now, might reopen later and add on.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Haruno Sakura &amp; Sasori, Haruno Sakura/Sasori</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akatsuko/gifts">Akatsuko</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The heat felt heavy over her light skin.  The sand sent little shivers of burning over the bare parts of her arms.  Her canteen hung loosely around her waist as she slowly made her way up the steep incline of the dune.  Over the last one hundred years she had come to terms with things.  She didn’t know if she was immortal or if the vial of green elixir Sasori had given her merely prolonged her life but she wasn’t willing to risk finding out yet.  Not until she saw the cottage, if it existed.  If it existed, she would find it.</p><p>Her body still required sustenance.  Her skin still needed to be covered from the harsh unforgiving sun.  She healed at an alarming rate.  She moved faster than the regular shinobi and she didn’t seem to age.  Her eyesight was superior, akin to the sharingan without having the hereditary trait or having to use chakra to activate it.  She barely needed to sleep, her vitality so abundant it carried her for days at a time, weeks if she wished it.</p><p>Now at the peak her eyes wandered slowly over the next expanse of the desert.  She passed Suna ten days ago.  He had said it was near Suna.  She had learned over the years that in the desert near was a loose term.  Her eyes locked onto a small ridge...of solid rock, stone if she wasn’t mistaken.  It felt like a former life, but before the green vial, she never would have spotted it, her eyes hadn’t been that good.</p><p>Slowly, she made her way down the side of the massive dune, a little at a time.  Her sense of balance, her reaction time had increased since that day, she had followed through on Sasori’s last wish.</p><p>…………..The green vial, the one the same color as your eyes, drink it, trust me…………….</p><p>He had said to her before he had died in her arms.  The man who had tortured her emotionally, mentaly for years.  He had cut her, broken her, stabbed her and had continuously poisoned her.  He had given her a vial of strange liquid and bid her drink it.  He had saved her life, protected her against the Akatsuki and in his own warped sense, loved her.  So she drank it.  It had taken years, no decades, if she was honest with herself, to understand the man.</p><p>Her husband, bless his soul, never had.  It had been the only sore spot in their marriage.  Her youthful appearance, not a day older than when they had married, on his deathbed.  Even then Shisui had teased her.  He had called her, “His eternal Doll”, his last hit, last punch where he knew it would get to her.  A cheap shot really.  She frowned as she tripped over her own feet a little bit.</p><p>Shisui was never petty, never cruel but that, that was his last jab at the only thing that had ever come between them.  Part of her resented him, part of her had no right to blame him.  She held nothing against him now.  He was her husband, ever kind, ever giving, ever faithful.</p><p>Part of it was her fault, she knew.  She had never forgotten Sasori, she never could.  Not only because of the elixir, not only because his scar was the only one she still bore, but because of the man himself.  He had become a part of her in a way an arch enemy is respected, revered and honored.  He had been an enigma to her.</p><p>Sakura squinted her eyes to look through her goggles, the ridge drew steadily closer.  She could make out a small cabin in the distance, on the other side of the ridge, and some out buildings.  She couldn’t help but wonder...were they greenhouses?</p><p>Her heart beat fully in her chest, adrenaline flooded her senses and she ran.  Sand spurted away from the soles of her feet and she bound the full length of the distance in seconds.  She came to a stop outside of the small cottage, bent over and breathing hard.  Her hand rose to lift the goggles from her face.  Wide green eyes took in what were clearly greenhouses.  She turned her head this way and that, a workroom was partially visible from the back of the cottage.</p><p>Sakura held her breath as she knocked on the door.  Thoughts of Sasori ran through her head.  Steps, she heard someone coming to the door, the knob turned, slowly.  She tried to further suppress her chakra, just in case.</p><p>The door opened.</p><p>“Sakura.  You finally came.  Welcome home dear.”</p><p>Sakura stood staring, her eyes wide and unbelieving.</p><p>“Sasori.”  She choked.</p><p>“Yes my Doll.  Come inside.” He held the door open for her.</p><p>She moved as though she were under water, one foot found it’s partner and one after the other, they moved, and carried her into the cottage, past Sasori, out of the light into the dim recesses of her new...home.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her heart beat furiously in her chest as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the cottage.  Such contrast.  From light to dark, reality to dream, dead to alive...Sasori.</p><p>His amber eyes were ever piercing, ever observant as he led the way to the kitchen.  At his hand gesture she sat down in a chair at the table, he sat opposite her with a small up turn of his lips.</p><p>Sakura couldn’t speak, she couldn’t find the words to say out of the many that swarmed through her head, so many questions but shock prevented a clear forming of any individual question in her head except for…</p><p>“Why?”  She asked him.</p><p>“You’ll have to be more specific dear.”  He smiled then.</p><p>“I see time has not changed your overactive mind.”  He smirked, yes a smirk…</p><p>“Why are you here?”  She asked him.</p><p>“The same reason as you are I imagine.”  He cocked his head to the side watching her.</p><p>“I came to see...to see if this cottage was real but I never expected to see you here.”  She unclenched her hands at her sides and let them rest on the top of the table, fingers linked with one another as if for support.</p><p>“I knew you would come, eventually.” </p><p>“Because you know me so well?”  She was almost hostile, childishly so considering her age.</p><p>“Yes.”  A simple answer to a challenged statement.</p><p>Heat flooded her face.  She really hadn’t expected him to be here, she had planned on seeing if the place was real and maybe staying here for a time, to escape the life she had once, to become new.  Like always, he surprised her, like always he left her with more questions than answers.</p><p>“Why, why can’t I escape you, why do you still torment me?”  She asked him a slight panic in her voice.</p><p>Sasori’s eyes softened.</p><p>“I was a fool Sakura.”  He said quietly.</p><p>The look on her face must have betrayed her feelings, for he paused. Reaching across the table, the space between them closed in the form of one hand wrapping around the other.</p><p>“I was a fool.”  He began again.  “I didn’t know what love was.  I tormented you because you tormented me.”</p><p>“What..”  She started but he cut her off.</p><p>“I wanted you, I couldn’t get you out of my head to the point of...you made me lose my concentration when I was working, my thoughts went to you when I was idle, you were always on my mind.  Ever since that day, ever since our first battle.  You were so beautiful, so mesmerizing, so different than anyone I have ever seen and I wanted you but I didn’t know how to, how to love.”</p><p>“Your husband is dead, your children are grown with children of their own.  I have been keeping track of your accomplishments, of your life, from a distance.”  He smiled at her softly.</p><p>“I have learned patience, I’ve learned peace.”  He said,</p><p>“Are we immortal?”  She asked.</p><p>“The vial of , the vial you gave me, I drank it, it changed me as you knew it would, did it, did it make me like you?”  She asked him.</p><p>“No, you are not immortal. We are not immortal, that is impossible.”  He squeezed her hand and rose from the table letting her hand rest upon the cool wood surface.</p><p>She immediately felt the loss of his touch, it had been so long since someone had touched her without fear, without force.</p><p>Sasori filled a kettle and placed it on a burner, he pulled tea from a nearby shelf and set out two mugs, then returned to the table taking her hand in his again.</p><p>“I had been loved once, by my parents.  When it was taken away from me, I never thought I would find love again, to be loved, to give love.  You, you awakened feelings in me that I wasn’t ready to feel, feelings I had thought long gone and dead with the deaths of my parents.  I was emotionless and as unfeeling as one of my coveted puppets.  I thought I was happy.  Until you.”  He looked at her with such sincerity she had to look away from him.</p><p>“At first it was your power, your brute strength and your intelligence, your courage though admirable was nothing short of a nuisance to me, I did want to make you into a puppet.  As we battled, I realized you were so much more, could be so much more, you were only a young woman at the time, such potential...I was right you know, look at you now, I can feel the power radiating off of you.”</p><p>“Over the years I came to know you, not as a potential puppet but as a person.  A living, breathing person, with desires and feelings, and I hated you for it, I despised you, so I ...reacted in the only way I knew how.  Forgive me.”  He rose to pour the tea setting her cup in front of her and taking his seat again.</p><p>“I have told you much, tell me my dear, why are you here?”  He sipped his tea and watched her over the rim.</p><p>“The life I had died with the death of my husband, once Shisui was gone...I had no anchor, I came to, to see the dream you had, because I no longer had one of my own.”  She let the cup warm her hands as she controlled the emotions ravaging her forgotten heart.</p><p>“And you found it, found me.”  He said calmly.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“You never used to be so reserved my dear.” He commented.</p><p>“I’ve lived long enough to say too many things I regret.”</p><p>“I regret not saying all the things I ought to have.”  He confessed to her with a small twitch of his lips.</p><p>“Such as?”  She was baiting him and they both knew it.</p><p>“I love you Sakura.”</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>“Do you finally know what love is Sasori?”  She asked him.</p><p>“I am here.” He said, his meaning clear.</p><p>“So am I.”  She looked at him.</p><p>Sasori smiled and rose from his seat. “Come, there is something I wish to show you.”</p><p>She rose and he took her hand leading her out of the small kitchen to the greenhouses she had seen from atop the dune.</p><p>“I made these for you, shortly after my arrival after my''Death ``.''  He opened the door for her.</p><p>“How did you manage that, how did you come to be here without anyone knowing?”  She asked him as they walked down the aisles to the pool of glistening water in the back of the greenhouse.</p><p>“I knew I didn’t hold your heart, I knew you still saw me as a threat, to you, to your people, you had someone who I knew would refuse to let you go.  It was a puppet dear, a masterpiece sacrificed for our greater good.  One of my best in fact.”  He turned the spigot and water pumped up the hose and flowed out over the tray he had set out along the sides of the green house, each tray had a single pot in the middle with a filter cartridge and seed.</p><p>“I waited for you.”  He said,</p><p>She knew he wasn’t referring to the greenhouse, he had waited for her to live her life, to get the closure she needed to come to the realization he had long ago, to come to him of her own free will.  Was that what love was?  Sakura realized love was not the same for everyone, the love she had for her husband had not been the same as the love she had for this man, this man before her now, and the love he had for her was not the same as the love her husband had for her.</p><p>“Is it possible?”  She spoke in a language he knew well.</p><p>“If you let it.”</p><p>“And the world?  The rest of the world Sasori?”  She asked him, her eyes bright and shimmering.</p><p>“Sakura, my dear, love...don’t you know by now?  This is how legends are born.”  He held his arms out and she stepped into them.</p><p>He wrapped her in his embrace, her scent floated up around him and he breathed her in deeply.  Finally, he had waited for so long.  He had been a child, a killer, a terrorist, and puppet, a fool...but with her, with her he could finally be what he had always been meant to be, a man.</p>
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